Ben's Chili Bowl

Ben’s Chili Bowl was one of the many places we traveled to on our first day in D.C.  Obama visited the place after the election to get to know the locals.  The place has a reputation to have the best chili dog on the East Coast and being 100% local.  When we showed up at the joint the first thing that caught my eye was the giant teddy bear sitting outside the restaurant.  It was covered with pictures of all sorts of animals, places, and buildings.  We took silly pictures of us with it while we waited to get into Ben’s.  The place looked like it hadn’t changed in years with colorful signs saying “Our chili makes your hotdog bark,” and “Home of the famous chilidog”.  There were guys in the window cooking up some grub, they were dancing so I decided to join in.  The place was as crowded as D.C. on inauguration day.  Everybody wanted to bite into one of their delicious chili dogs.  They had old-school soul music blasting from a jukebox in the corner.  All of the employees were dancing and singing along.  People were laughing.  You could feel that it wasn’t just the chilidogs that attracted customers.   It was the energy.  We made our way through the crowd and into the backroom where we grabbed a table.  The walls were littered with pictures of famous actors and singers at Ben’s Chili Bowl.  Such as Bono, Denzel Washington, and Dr. Dre.  Ben’s has been around for along time since 1958

The only things people ordered at Ben’s is the chilidog, the chili cheese fries a.k.a “The Clogger” ,  and the chili burger.  We made a mass order of high cholesterol and waited as we sipped our drinks.  Some kids went around asking strangers to say, “Yes we can,” in to the camera, surprisingly everyone was eager to be on film.  They also interviewed a local woman about the inauguration. We got our fries and immediately knew that we were in for a treat.  The fries were covered in piping hot chili and soaked in nacho cheese.  Christian and I ate as fast as we could knowing the fries would get soggy if we let them sit.  They were extremely messy, I will probably have a permanent chili stains on my jacket.  I ate a lot but also saved some room for a chili burger.  The chili burger was a monster.  It dripped onion juice and chili. Almost half the burger was gone before you would get to take a bit into it.  Though it was messy, it was delicious.  After I ate, the group decided to get into the vibe and make a Congo line.  We danced into the front room until the music turned off.  It was really awkward because everybody was looking at us like we were a group of weirdoes.  As we left we got the whole restaurant to say “yes we can” as loud as they could.  People were really excited about the days to come.